Picking up trash and debris from yards, shoulders of roads, parking lots and the like is a labor intensive job that can quickly lead to backaches and back fatigue.
The simplest remedy for the above problems, and one that has been widely used over the years, is an elongated handle with a spike sticking out one end thereof so that trash and debris can simply be speared and when the spike is full, the trash and debris can be pushed off the same with the hand into a bag or other receptacle.
The handled spike works fairly well for trash such as pieces of paper or the like, but the smaller the trash or debris is, the harder it is to accurately spear the same. This is particularly true of small pieces of relatively flat material as well as such items as drink cans, pine cones and the like. Also when picking up trash discarded by humans, there is an ever increasing danger of the user of the pickup device becoming contaminated with chemicals or disease carrying media by having to push the debris off the spike by hand.
Pickup devices with multiple spikes have been developed to eliminate the accurate spearing that the single spiked pickup device requires so that small pieces of trash, cans and the like as well as yard debris such as pine cones, encased nut hulls and the like can be more readily picked up without requiring accurate placement of the device during use.
Along with the development of multi-tined pickup devices, tine cleaning means of various types have been developed. All of these devices however require the manipulation of handles or levers which quickly becomes very tiring to the average user and with people who have arthritis and similar problems, the manipulation of such devices may be very difficult if not impossible.
The following references represent the closest prior art of which the inventor is aware: